


Her Madman

by joonfired



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships, Dark Doctor (Doctor Who), Doctor Who Feels, Doctor Who References, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Kind of non canon, Multi-faceted Doctor, No Smut, Non-Canon Relationship, Original Plot, POV Original Female Character, POV Second Person, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Time Travel, steamy fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-03 10:04:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13338948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joonfired/pseuds/joonfired
Summary: Your name is Alana, and the Doctor has been looking for you.





	1. Voices

**Author's Note:**

> A fic I'm writing for both my friend and just for the heck of it, as I've always been interested in the slightly darker moments in Doctor Who. Not that I'm against the fun and quirky parts, but I do adore complicated characters to a slightly unsettling degree, I suppose. So, here's a fic where the Eleventh Doctor isn't as in-line with canon:

Your name is Alana, and it has been a long, quiet day.

The voices were gone, which meant that you were lonely. No one believes you can hear them. That’s why you’re here, locked up and labeled crazy.

Maybe it’s true. Maybe everything is in your head like the Whitecoats say, even though the voices echo and mutter and shout like they could belong to bodies, except you’ve never seen anyone or anything. Maybe nothing is real. Maybe you’re dead and this is the afterlife, a hopeless jumble of confusion.

Maybe you _are_ crazy.

Your room is dark at night, the kind that makes you wonder if your eyes are working or not. Air hisses down from the vents overhead, so cold you feel it in your bones. You huddle against the wall, arms tight around yourself to try and keep warm.

A new sound suddenly appears, strange and mechanic. You think it sounds like an asthmatic robot, which makes you giggle.

_It’s not a robot_ , one of the voices says, giggling too. _It’s the madman. He’s here._

“Everyone’s mad here,” you say, and that makes you giggle, too.

You’re Alice and this is your Wonderland.

The lights flick on, harsh in their brightness. You close your eyes, wincing at the blinding glow stabbing through your retinas, existing even in your mind through your memories. Ugh. This is a random security check, isn’t it?

“It’s all right now, Alana,” a voice says, this one very real and somehow familiar. Warm fingers come under your chin, the gesture gentle and comforting. “I found you.”

The Whitecoats aren’t like this. They are always rough and impartial – like robots.

“Who are you?” you ask, squinting your eyes open. You can’t see the man in front of you except as a fuzzy outline.

“Oh, sorry,” he says. He clears his throat, clearly thrown aback that you don’t recognize him. “You . . . you don’t remember. You don’t remember anything, do you?”

“I remember coming here,” you tell him. This is routine. The Whitecoats always asked you what you remembered, so you know what to say. “I remember my parents – Alan and Victoria; I’m named after my dad – and going to school. I remember graduating, I did well in math, and then I started hearing the voices. And that’s when I was brought here, which is where I’ve been since. My six-year arrival anniversary is in four months and two days.”

“I’m sorry,” the man says, and now you can see him.

He looks young at first, maybe a few years older than you. His hair falls forward into his eyes, which makes you wonder how often he brushes it aside and if the gesture is an unconscious habit or not. His gaze holds yours with concern glimmering in the vivid green of his eyes, and when you look deeper, you think that he doesn’t seem that young anymore.

Those eyes have seen more than someone as young as he looks. They are the eyes of an ancient person, and it’s that detail that catches at you.

You _do_ know this man . . . and yet, you don’t remember meeting him.

_We told you_ , the voices say all at once, clamoring against your ears. _But you didn’t listen. We aren’t real. Nothing is real._

“Nothing’s real,” you murmur.

The man nods his head, his hands reaching to grip your shoulders carefully. Protectively.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeats. “I shouldn’t have left you, Alana. I should have protected you. By the time I heard what had happened to you, it was too late. But I found you now. I found you, and I promise, I _promise_ I won’t leave you. Not this time. Not again.”

_It’s not his fault. He can’t protect everyone. He carries too much weight on his shoulders. He needs you. You’re his protector, too. You have to stay with him, Alana._

The voices make sense now, hazy memories swirling up from the hidden depths of your mind. You thought they were just nonsense, but they were _you_ trying to remember.

“Come on, Alana,” the Doctor says, leaning forward and touching his forehead to yours. He closes his eyes. “It’s time to wake up.”


	2. Memories

You open your eyes and remember.

The parts about your family and school are right, but being locked up isn’t. You were captured. The rest is hazy, because the false memories replace whatever was real, but you remember the Doctor.

He showed you the corners of the universe. He took you to places past and future. You saw worlds you had never imagined could exist, and walked through the stars.

But then . . . then . . .

Nothing. You have blurry recognition of things, like who the Doctor is and what you’ve seen with him, but after that . . . nothing. There are black holes in your mind; a vacuum that pulls any scrap of knowledge away from your searching grasp.

“Hello,” the Doctor says, smiling at you.

You’re in a different room than before, and you’re lying flat on a table. Machines hum and beep around you, filling the air with noise where there was only silence, the voices of your confused mind, and cold. Wires run under your skin, thin and pulsing – like foreign veins attempting to graft with your body.

Panic surges to life inside of you, sharp and desperate. The machines mirror the alarm in your mind, blaring their own alarms with loud, grating beeps.

The Doctor brings out his screwdriver, muttering under his breath like his tool is a wand and his words are a spell, and a moment later the machines turn off. The wires stop pulsing under your skin, but you aren’t sure which was worse – the sensation of something alive and unknown inside of you . . . or something dead sitting limply inside your veins, slowly rotting.

Oh, yes. You’d forgotten what a vivid imagination you have, and how much it torments you in moments like this.

“Hang on, Alana,” the Doctor says, now inspecting the wires you’re imbedded with. “I’ll get you out of here soon, I promise.”

“They’re going to come,” you say, knowing that whoever took you doesn’t want to let you go. They kept you hidden so well that it took the Doctor – the man who knows almost every inch of the universe in its every moment – six years to find you. “They know that if anyone is rescuing me, it’s going to be you. They want you, Doctor.”

“I know,” he says, frowning as he scans you with the familiar whirring hum of his sonic screwdriver.

Soon, the wires are out, and you are free. The Doctor takes your hand as you sit up, his fingers strong and warm through yours. As soon as you’re on your feet, you’re running.

This feels right, you and him, dashing down hallways and clattering down stairwells. It’s like you’re not really alive without the rush of adrenaline running through your veins, the possibility of danger lurking just behind you.

“Almost there . . . yes. Good. Here we are!” The Doctor’s voice is relieved, which shows just how uncertain he was before.

The TARDIS glows in front of you, the blue paint and illuminated lettering like a glimpse of home. Because it _is_ your home, even more than the houses you grew up in. This extraordinary ship is where you are safe, and you have missed that feeling.

You dash inside just in time. Shadows scuttle down the halls behind you, hissing angrily, far different from the Whitecoats in your head. But you know they’re the same things, these creatures and the Whitecoats; they were your captors.

The TARDIS doors shut, blocking the horrible faces. The Doctor flips switches, jiggles levers, taps buttons, and you leave your prison behind.

But you’re still not safe. There’s still something inside of you, something those creatures did that you can’t escape. Something you lost.

“I’m not okay,” you say, as your limbs tremble and collapse. The TARDIS floor rises to meet you–

–and you black out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment, please!!


	3. Home

The darkness is nice. It’s a different kind from the one you were trapped in, kind and forgiving. You want to stay here, but reality eventually comes back. You can’t hide from it forever.

You’re tucked into a soft bed, a fluffy blanket pulled up to your chin. The light of this new room is dim, a warm yellow glow. As you blink, your mind clearing and readjusting to its freedom, you recognize space as yours. This is where you stayed when you traveled with the Doctor.

You stand up and walk over to the wall lined in pictures, all of them from different places. Some of them are of the Doctor, his smile wide and oddly goofy, which isn’t how you think of him now. That was from the beginning, before he let you see past his walls of eccentric charm and oddball mannerisms.

Your Doctor feels real. The Doctor of then was a façade, a front to show the world and hide what he really was like. Because if everyone saw him for who you know him to be – weary, ancient, worn down by loss, scarred by the deeds of his pasts – they would run.

The real Doctor is frightening, but you still love him. You know he needs someone who won’t run. And so, you stayed.

You’ll still stay.

You leave the pictures a few minutes later and pull out fresh clothing, discarding the ones you wore because you’d worn them for six years. Your skin is dotted with little red marks where the wires were, and you hope they’ll fade away. You’ve already got enough reminders of your captivity in your head that you don’t want any on your body.

After you’ve changed into dark pants, a pale green tunic you found in a market on the human-colonized planet Heth, and brushed the knots out of your hair, you leave your room and look for the Doctor.

He isn’t hard to find.

He’s sitting on the bench in the control room, leafing through a first-edition copy of _Sherlock Holmes_ even though you know he’s read it many times before. When you sit down next to him, he closes the book and looks over at you, relief obvious in his green gaze.

“Feeling better?” he asks, hopeful.

You nod. You are better than you were . . . but you aren’t completely normal, either. And you doubt you ever will be. Not after something like you went through, even though you don’t exactly _know_ what you went through.

“What are they?” you ask, curious about your former captors. “I don’t remember what they did to me, just little bits and pieces, but I know how badly they want you, Doctor. They want you so much that they’re not going to stop until they have you.”

The Doctor’s features darken with old memories. You know this look well and what it means, so you reach out and take his hand with yours.

It’s never been more than this with the two of you. You don’t have to talk much to offer comfort, and simple touches like holding hands or giving a quiet, understanding hug are enough. It’s how it’s always been.

But now, with six years stretching between you, something else feels different. You can’t explain it, can’t understand it, but it’s like there’s a door you didn’t know about that now you see and you’re not sure whether you want to open it or not. Or if it even _should_ be opened.

You can think about that later.

Right now, the Doctor has a story to tell.


	4. Emotions

They are so old, their name had been forgotten.

The Doctor grew up with them as stories told only in the darkest hours, whispered tales meant to send shivers down spines and fear curling into hearts. They are what the Time Lords defeated long before the Daleks were ever invented, and they are the darkness inside the twisting, shifting loops of time. They crave power above anything else, and they will do anything to get it back.

The Doctor is the one being who could stop him, and he is also the one being who has continuously avoided their attempts on his life.

This is the story the Doctor tells you, his voice soft and heavy with memory. You dart a glance at his features, but they don’t tell you anything new. There are so many things he has seen, so many things that he has done, that it is hard to find true surprise or horror in his gaze.

Time has both sharpened and dulled him, and all his mysteries feel the same to you.

“So, you’re right,” the Doctor says, standing up. His fingers slip from yours, your hand falling to rest on the copy of _Sherlock Holmes_ that he leaves behind him. “They aren’t going to stop. Not now, not ever.”

“What are you going to do?” you ask.

The Doctor shrugs, coming to a stop by one of the control panels on the console. He braces his palms on the edge, fingers curving over the metal surface, his gaze flicking over the levers and buttons of the console.

“Same as I’ve always done, I suppose – run.” He glances over his shoulder at you, a complicated sort of smile pulling at one corner of his mouth. “I’m very good at that, you know.”

“I want to run, too,” you tell him, going to stand by him.

Your gazes meet and hold, a thousand, million unsaid things flickering between your eyes. It’s both easy and frightening, this method of communication. You know each other so well, even after all these years, that words can be useless. Unnecessary.

And so, the Doctor knows, he understands. He sees that you want to run as far as possible from the memories of your captivity. You want to run hard enough that they’re left behind in the dusty, untouched past. You want to run to fill your head with shiny memories to replace the awful, tarnished ones those creatures gave you for six years.

“I should have found you sooner, Alana,” he whispers, your gazes still unbroken.

“Was that even possible?” you counter, knowing how impossible things work.

The Doctor looks away then, fingers tightening on the edge of the console. You recognize the signs of his mind working, sorting, flying through six years of memories. Trying all the possible scenarios for what he did when you were gone. Wondering if maybe he’d sentenced you to a longer imprisonment than you could have had.

“Stop.” You place your hand over his again, lining your fingers up against the taut muscles. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. You did the best you could with what you knew. And you found me.”

“Yes, I found you,” he replies, but the softness of his voice can’t hide the sharp edge of his words, the regret he feels. “But only after I lost you in the first place.”

“What happened to me wasn’t your fault,” you start.

“Oh, but it was!” The Doctor pushes away from the console, brushing his hair out of his face with a tight gesture. He walks three paces before whirling on you, the conflict inside him now evident on his features. “I didn’t have to leave you, but I did. I should have been there to protect you, but I didn’t!”

“You can’t protect everyone,” you gently remind him.

You’ve said this to him before, many times. Even though he knows better than anyone that some things just can’t be changed.

But that’s why you love him, this mysterious madman of yours. Mysterious because of the centuries he’s lived through, mad because no one lives that long without losing some of their sanity, and yours because your heart has claimed him.

You love him because the Doctor is a man who cares so much that his heart has shattered over and over against the inevitable, unchangeable will of Time.

Barely a second has passed since your words, but time always seems longer when you’re thinking. And especially now, with the tension thick in the air of the TARDIS between you and the Doctor, time seems even slower.

And then the Doctor smiles, and all is right. It’s not his widest smile, nor his brightest, but it’s still real. It’s full of everything that has been said and learned just now, along with a touch of hope and peace.

He steps forward, and so do you. In the next moment, his arms are around you and you tuck your head against his shoulder, fingers laced at the small of his back. You hold each other tightly, your first true embrace since your return. And like everything since then, it is both familiar and strange.

There’s a new element between you, one you aren’t sure you want to poke at just yet . . . if ever.

“Oh, Alana,” the Doctor says. You hear his words from his chest first through the rhythm of his twin heartbeats. “I missed you.”


	5. Running

Slowly, you recapture a sense of normality. A few days after your return, you are feeling much better, vitality flowing through your veins. Your limbs don’t feel weak anymore, but restless and ready for action.

You want an adventure.

“Let’s go somewhere bright and busy,” you say one day as you breeze into the control room . . . only to see that the Doctor isn’t there. “Hello? Doctor?”

“Bright and busy, eh?” The Doctor brushes past you, that mad glint in his eyes one you know he only gets when he’s feeling particularly reckless and jolly. “Yes, lets. I could do with a good ole smash of a planet. A trading post, perhaps? Or the intergalactic stock market central?”

While he’s talking, he walks up to the console, fingers dancing over the controls. The TARDIS rumbles under your feet, and perhaps it’s the excitement running through your veins, but you think that the ship seems anxious for travel. Like adventure is the air and it’s contagious.

“Kenlabot is a nice choice,” the Doctor continues, flashing a wink in your direction as you join him at the directional monitor where his fingers hover over the old-fashioned keyboard, ready to enter coordinates. “It’s big, bold, and packed with enough sights to keep you busy looking at them for three or four of your lifespans.”

“Perfect,” you say, holding the console with one hand and reaching out with the other to loop it through his arm.

“Geronimo,” the Doctor murmurs.

He pulls the lever that releases the TARDIS from auto-orbit and sends it careening into the whirling void of the time paths. There’s one shuddering lurch, and then you’re off.

You laugh as the TARDIS shakes and spins, the internal gravity keeping you safely on the floor, but with just enough leeway to add a dangerous spark of fun to the ride. The Doctor whoops once, long and loud, just before the TARDIS wheezes to a stop several minutes later.

“It always feels better when you’re going somewhere you’re looking forward to,” he comments, stepping away from the console, and you, straightening his coat.

His trademark bowtie is a little crooked, and he glances down as you reach up to fix it. Your knuckles bump lightly against his chin in the process, catching warm skin and faint stubble. That little bit of contact shouldn’t unnerve you . . . but it does.

Maybe it’s just that you haven’t really touched anyone, or anything, for a long time. Or maybe it’s the time between the two of you that has sharpened what was already there, bringing it out of the shadows to hang awkward and precarious.

You swallow slightly and glance up at the Doctor. He meets your gaze with another cheeky, friendly wink before leaning down to deposit a kiss atop your head. It’s a common gesture of his, no more intimate than a chummy pat on the shoulder, but with your new heightened sense of his actions, you feel it as a bigger action.

You want it to be a bigger action.

But that thought is quickly shrugged off as the Doctor spins away, his usual mask of saucy charm and wide smiles dropping over him as he prepares to head out into the universe. Outside the walls of the TARDIS, he doesn’t let others see what you do. He’s flashier and sassier, with very little depth to his actions – at least not at first glance.

You know that he hates letting all his dark corners show, but you love him because he doesn’t hide from you. You see all of him, and that’s what you prefer.

“Come along, Alana,” the Doctor trills from the doorway, one hand on the catch and the other stretched out waiting for you. “Let’s run.”

Those two words tell you that, even though he’s smiling brighter than circus lights, he knows how you see him. He knows exactly how many and what kind of masks he wears, and he knows that you understand why he wears them.

And so, you take his hand with unshaken confidence and step out into the whirling, beautiful chaos of Kenlabot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kenlabot is a reference to The Last Jedi btw . . . yes, I'm that helpless over Star Wars that I throw references to it in almost everything else I write, both originals and fics.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> really channeled the Alice in Wonderland vibe I've got going for Alana here

This place is loud and chaotic. Neon lights glisten in the thin spatter of rain – the Doctor tells you this a constant weather anomaly here – and the carbon streets are slick with shallow puddles. Raindrops ping against metal roofs that cover the shops lining every street, adding to the chatter and buzz of the thousands of sentient beings milling about.

You join the crowd, your hand tight in the Doctor’s. He grins and chats with anyone who cares to greet him, dozens of alien languages rolling smoothly off his tongue. Some you understand, gathered in your time spent traveling with him, but most are completely foreign to your ears.

You feel lost in the crush of movement, but it’s a sensation you’ve been craving. You were alone for so long that you want to drown in the roar of conversations and machinery and rain and _life_.

The time passes in a blur.

You slurp cakey noodles huddled next to the Doctor under a clear umbrella, raindrops glittering multi-colored from the flashing neon signs around you as they roll off the plastic surface. You dance in oil-shine puddles to the music of an interspecies street band, swirling from partner to partner, but always ending in the Doctor’s arms when each song stops. You are tired and happy and brim-full of adventure, adrenaline buzzing hot in your veins.

This is what you’ve missed those six years.

Hours later, you clatter into the TARDIS, eyes bright and heart racing. Your hair is damp across your forehead, and you smooth it back with one hand as the Doctor locks the doors on Kenlabot.

“Let’s stay here for a few days,” you say, waltzing over to the console and trailing your fingers along the edge as you dance around the circular panels. “It’s so pretty and exciting.”

“You’re quite head over heels for this place, aren’t you?” the Doctor says.

“Oh, absolutely,” you reply, popping around the central pillar to grin at him. “Mad about it.”

“Mmm, mad,” he muses, combing his damp hair back with both hands. “That’s quite a description.”

That sobers you a little as you wonder if he thinks you’re mad. You know you are, and sometimes it’s good to be mad, but you also know that there are many different kinds. The Doctor’s madness is the kind with many layers . . . but then isn’t all madness more complicated than a simple deduction? That’s what makes it madness, isn’t it?

Your head spins and not just from the happy exhaustion of traipsing about Kenlabot. Your own madness is creeping back now that you’re back in the TARDIS, and this is the kind that is dark and suffocating. It’s what you can’t escape even after the Doctor rescued you from your six-year prison.

“I’m mad,” you say quietly. It feels louder, this announcement, though in reality your words barely slide past your lips. “Very, very mad.”

“’Course you are,” the Doctor snaps back lightly, as you expected he would. After all, he’s been living with madness for far longer than you have. It’s his longest companion. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have said yes when I asked if you wanted to travel all of time and space with me.”

That pulls a laugh from you. Ah, yes. It does take a certain sort of madness to say yes to such a proposal.

The Doctor walks around to you, inspecting you much like he does with the TARDIS when it’s acting up. The green of his gaze is sharp and observational, though not without a comforting hint of kindness. He understands madness and he knows that there’s more to the healthy kind lurking inside your mind.

“What did they do to you, Alana?” he murmurs, lifting his hands and resting his fingertips against the sides of your face, thumbs braced lightly against your cheekbones.

You shiver under his touch, under the foreign brush of his mind against yours. You’ve seen him pull this feat with others but have never experienced it yourself. The sensation is . . . unnerving. It reminds me of the cold groping of the Whitecoats, even though the Doctor’s touch is much, much warmer.

“It’s all right,” he says, ever-so-slightly shifting the pads of his fingers against your skin, anchoring his careful hold. “They can’t get you here, Alana. You’re safe.”

Oh, of course. He’s inside your mind, or at least close enough to read it. Nothing is hidden from him now . . .

“Damn it,” the Doctor suddenly says, pulling away with a grimace.

Your heart races, desperate to know what he’s discovered.

“What is it?”

He shakes his head, unease shining in his eyes. “You’re not going to like it.”

“Tell me,” you insist. “Whatever it is, Doctor, I can handle it. Just please, don’t lie . . .” You don’t like the begging note in your voice, but you can’t stop it. You couldn’t bear it if he lied to you with the intention of making you believe it as truth. “Don’t you dare lie to me.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and you know this tone. It’s the voice he uses when there are things in the universe that he cannot change. “I’m so sorry, Alana.”

“Doctor.” You reach out, fingers twisting in his sleeve. “What did you see?”

Instead of words, he touches a hand against your face, transferring images to your mind. You see dark tendrils winding around green, slowly choking the bright life of your mind. You feel the darkness as he sees it, but you also feel it inside of you now, cracking you apart and shaping you into something . . . _other_.

You take a step back, gripping your fingers around themselves, squeezing hard. But you still tremble, panic racing thin and heady through your veins.

The wires . . . the voices . . . the _cold_ . . . It wasn’t just a symptom, it was a reaction. You were being changed, are still being changed.

And the look in the Doctor’s eyes means that there’s nothing he can do to stop it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof I'm so predictable I love dramatic angst


	7. Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let the true angst begin . . .

You lie flat on your bed, eyes fixed on the myriad of constellations you have mapped across the ceiling. The painted stars blur in your vision, morphing into tangled threads of creeping black that stretch out and choke the surface in nothing but darkness. You lift a hand and inspect the faint scars of the wires, wondering what poison those creatures had been filling you with for those six years.

You wonder what you are becoming.

“Alana?” The Doctor stands in your doorway, shoulder propped against the frame and his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry.”

This is perhaps the hundredth time he’s apologized – from the first revelation, throughout the evening, the words sitting in his eyes as you explored Kenlabot again, and then now.

“It’s not your fault,” you say, tucking your hand against your side.

It would be easy to blame the Doctor for leaving you unprotected against the creatures that have done this horror to you, but you know it’s not his fault. He can’t save everyone, not even you. And life is never that easy, no matter how hard you might wish it to be in rough times like this one.

“Hey,” he says, coming to flop down next to you. “There’s still hope.”

Your shoulders touch, and you want to lean into that tempting comfort, curl into his warmth and never leave, but you aren’t yourself. You haven’t been even since he rescued you, maybe never have been ever since those creatures took you.

“I mean it, honest,” the Doctor continues, and he’s the one to move closer, tangling his hand in yours. “You know me, eh? Never give up even when I should, and even then I keep smashing at the odds, again and again.”

“I know,” you reply, the words soft past your dry lips.

“We’ll figure something out,” he promises. “I’m not giving up on you, Alana, and you shouldn’t either.”

You nod, but it’s a lie. Maybe he knows it, maybe he doesn’t. You don’t care. There’s finally an answer to the dark question growing inside of you, and now you’re just waiting for it to become complete.

And when it does, you’ll run and never look back. You owe the Doctor and the universe that much. Because whatever these creatures have done to you, you know it’s not for the best.

“We could go to Mosato and see if the monks have anything about this,” the Doctor says, clearly rambling. “Or the Silent Church – they’d know something, at least. Or snap back really far and check in with first Time Lords, since they’re the ones who originally fought these creatures . . . yes, that’s what.”

He hops to his feet, his movements jagged with desperate hope. You sit up slower, hope a distant flame in your mind, drowning in darkness. Your gazes meet, and you see him catch the despair that fills every molecule of your body, growing alongside the foreign shadows in your mind.

“No, no, no, no,” the Doctor breathes, slipping forward and holding your head, resting his forehead against yours. “No, Alana, don’t do this. Don’t give up, you hear me? _Don’t give up_. I shouldn’t have been so frightened when I saw what they’d planted inside you, what they’re turning you into. I’m sorry about that.”

He tips his head up, your noses bumping as he moves away just far enough to hold your gaze with his. He’s begging you to share his hope, to fight to save what’s left of your humanity.

“I’m scared,” you finally say, tears blurring his face in front you. “I’m so scared, Doctor. I don’t think I’ve ever been this frightened in my life, not ever, but I just can’t stop thinking about what you saw, what you showed me, what I’m becoming, and it’s tearing me apart, this fear, so much–”

The Doctor ends your shaky panic by covering your mouth with his own. This isn’t a friendly gesture, you realize. It’s him crossing the gap that has been dancing between you because he has nothing left. It’s the only thing he can do to comfort you because he’s frightened too, so much that his breath trembles as he moves closer, his fingers slipping up into your hair.

You kiss him back desperately, years of longing finally given action. You taste the salt of your tears, or maybe mingled tears, and your gasps are from both panic still churning inside you and of surprise at how desperately the Doctor is kissing you back.

The kiss perhaps last only a moment, but it feels like a lifetime. When the Doctor pulls away, mouth open slightly for air, his expressions are shattered open, naked and raw. You see the love you feel towards him mirrored in his eyes shining back at you, mixed with the same fear and tentative hope and inescapable despair you feel, too. It’s this moment that you are completely, irreversibly lost, your heart forever belonging to the mad, wonderful being you still taste on your lips.

“I know, Alana,” the Doctor finally says. “Oh, do I know.”

“You really think there’s a way to stop whatever this is inside me?” you whisper, letting yourself dare to hope for a future without the darkness. “Really and truly?”

The Doctor nods.

“Really and truly.”


	8. Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is just dragging me along with it. I have a vague idea of where it ends, but other than that, each chapter is as much a surprise to me as it probably is to you.

Hope feels much better than waiting for the choking end. You want the spark of it to flare and burn away the darkness inside you, so much so that your skin seems abnormally hot to the touch. Or maybe the feverish symptoms you feel are the beginning of the irreversible end, your discovery of the parasitical force inside you too late to stop it.

The Doctor doesn’t think so, dashing about the controls with a tight, nervous energy. As the TARDIS rattles and groans around you, he keeps glancing over to meet your gaze, as if to reassure himself that you’re still here. That you’re still you, not a shadow-filled husk masquerading under your name and features.

The TARDIS lands with a jolt, the engines wheezing to a stop in a way that almost seems panicked. Like this glorious machine was rushing, sensing the Doctor’s worry and straining itself through the loops of time.

You pat the console and murmur, “Get some rest.”

“Right,” the Doctor says, bustling around to you. He pushes his hair out of his face, though most of the strands flop right back down a moment later. “This should be interesting, considering that technically these Time Lords aren’t called Time Lords just yet. They’re just a race that climbed out of the black stretch of space with a knack for galivanting about outside their born-time.”

He’s rambling as you walk out of the TARDIS, the rapidity and erratic way of his words betraying his emotions more than usual. He’s rarely this unhinged outside the blue doors, and this makes you feel both happy to know that he cares so much but also strange for causing the Doctor to change because of you. You feel terribly powerful and you don’t like it.

“Stop!”

Suddenly, the air shimmers and tall, red-cloaked figures stride out of nowhere to lower long silvery rods at you. Not the Doctor—just you. Their weapons seem to hum, the noise vibrating the air around you and growing a scream in your throat.

“Whoa! Whoa, all right! All right!” The Doctor lifts his hands in a show of peace. “We’re not here for trouble.”

“But you bring trouble with you,” one says, words muffled by the silvery masks all the figures wear over their features and hooded by the cowl of their robes. “The female is heavy with decay.”

The Doctor tosses you an apologetic grimace, while you gape in horror and offense at the figures.

“Ah, yes,” the Doctor says carefully. “About that.”

“Just who do you think you are,” another figure challenges, “thinking you can traipse into here with a Destroyer lurking in her veins?”

You share a look with the Doctor. Well, at least the thing inside you has a name even if you’re no closer to understanding exactly _what_ it is.

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor has settled his mask in place now, his blithe attitude singing across his demeanor. “Sorry. Totally didn’t think about it . . . ah, what exactly is a Destroyer again?”

“They’re jumpers,” yet another figure says, though this time to one of their one. The rod in its hand wavers and the hum in the air directed at you ripples with discordant harmony.

The thing in you _roils_ , and you cringe with it against the off-key sound. The humming is growing in pitch, crowding your ears, turning you wild as the darkness inside fights for control to _run_. It was happy inside the protection of the TARDIS, just like you. And so you want to run back inside the blue doors, shut yourself away from these weird beings and the horrific noise of their weapons.

“. . . here for help,” are words of the Doctor’s that you catch, slipping past the overpowering hum.

“Come with us,” is the last thing you hear before you fall into the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Updates shouldn't be too slow, as I can churn chapters out on this rather quickly. Do leave kudos and a comment, as I crave and appreciate reader interaction!


End file.
